Economy 7 not working through old RTS meter - will smart meter work in apartment block?

Ok having had another bash through your instructions (think we did it wrong first time), it shows rate 2 as 00010. Economy 7 used to be rate 4 on our old meters though, could that be an issue? Have read somewhere that OVO charge all energy used during off peak hours (whether on an economy 7 appliance or not) at a cheaper rate on a smart meter, is that correct?

We’ve got four lights flashing as you say, the two you mentioned plus another that says SW and another that says PWR. 

Here’s as good a pic of how it’s wired in as I could get

Great! I see what the engineer meant about switching the neutral: I don’t know enough about that sort of switchgear to be able to say how it should be done, but power to the heating equipment should be controlled by the little white box on the left. The thin grey cable alongside the blue one carries the signal from the meter telling the contactor in the white box when to switch on and off. It looks odd to me ...   
    

If you’re seeing 10 kWh on RATE2, then that should be the offpeak reading. RATE1 gives the peak. So my remark about the tariff switching not working was wrong.
    

Yes. If the heating equipment (both space- and water-heating) was working, you’d be seeing quite a bit more than 10 kWh on RATE2. Those 10 kWh are just everything else running at night during the offpeak hours - fridges, freezers etc. - along with (perhaps) a kettle and toaster if they’re switched on before the end of the offpeak period, whenever that’s supposed to be. It could be 08:00 or even 08:30 - do you know?
    

That’s really good news. The 4G hub is apparently connecting to the network as it should. WAN is the smart meter network, HAN the home area network that’s supposed to connect to the In-Home Display I mentioned. Details here.

I wonder what the next engineer will say about that wiring. It could be all right, in which case it looks as if the problem is as I said before: the ALCS isn’t properly configured (if at all - we’ve seen that before, too!). I don’t know whether OVO’s extremely helpful tame meter guru has a moment to look this over, so we’ll ask anyway - are you up for it, ​@Lukepeniket_OVO?

So rate 2 is now the off peak reading, but previously on the old meters it was rate 4. There is a rate 4 (and 3 for that matter) on the new smart meter showing 00000. Should the off peak not still be on rate 4 rather than rate 2?

This is my meter (the original) and how it’s wired in if that’s any help

No! The wider system (i.e. the one that transmits data to your supplier via DCC’s secure gateway) works best if what the meter sends is either a single rate as Rate 1 or two with Rate 1 as peak and Rate 2 as offpeak. When meters were read manually, it didn’t much matter what the rates (often referred to as tiers) were called so long as you obeyed the meter manufacturer’s instructions to take the readings. Now with an automatic system it does matter!  

News - OVO never arrived to replace the neighbours meter, they sent him a message to say that they’d escalated his complaint to a “Customer Resolution Specialist” and he’ll hear from them in the next five working days.

Meanwhile, I’ve been to see the neighbour with the new Octopus meter - he’s got the same story, the meter change hasn’t restored his economy 7, and it’s been in nearly a fortnight now. 
 

I also finally managed to get in touch with another neighbour, who we’d heard from the building management company had had the same problem. They said that there’d been damage done to a cable in their flat (mentioned a “timing cable”) while some decorating was being done, but the cable had been repaired and now everything was functional again.

Can anyone glean any clues from any of that?

By the way Firedog, I asked the neighbour if he’d been given an IHD when I saw him earlier and no, he wasn’t given one. I thought they had to provide one, no? 

Hello again Jim 👋 I hope you’re not getting even more confused by my ramblings! 

Thanks for the picture of your meter. It’s one of the latest, and probably last, of the meters specially constructed for RTS. It seems to have been neatly installed, but you’d have to be a competent electrician to be sure - my archaic mechanical engineering degree doesn’t help me much here, I’m afraid.

The sticker at the top of it and the details on the Meter Exchange (MEX) label alongside it are quite revealing. The sticker shows that what the meter shows as RATE1 is registered as R02, while RATE4 is registered as R01. Then the meter engineer calls them L and N, meaning (I think) Low and Normal (price, that is). If you were told that RATE4 was offpeak, then the confusion is complete! I think it was normal for Economy 7 in those days for the first tier (R01) to be offpeak, Low register with the second (R02) for peak, Normal. The advent of the DCC meant that had to be reversed. I know - I ended up with months of discussion about this with my own meter, which eventually led to its being exchanged for a shiny new SMETS2 device in 2023. Even then, they got it wrong and the registers had to be reversed (remotely) a few days after installation. When your new meter is in place, you should take a moment to check that they’re the right way round for you. The MEX label also shows that your meter is a second-hand one, two years and several hundred kWh old on installation. 

To your latest question, yes, I’m fairly certain that the supplier is required to provide an IHD with every new smart meter. It might be that the engineer just didn’t bother because it seemed obvious that it wouldn’t work in your block, or that he just didn’t have the necessary kit in his van to make it work. See the results of a Google search I just ran: smart meter installation code of practice - Google Search. While you should never take Google’s AI Overview as gospel, you might make note of it in anticipation of your own installation to come.

Firedog, what you call your ramblings are literally the only helpful advice we’ve had from anybody over the last few weeks, everyone else from letting agents to OVO haven’t been anywhere near as generous with their time and knowledge as you have. If we were ever to meet I think me and my neighbour would buy you a pint or five! We really appreciate your help.
 

Do you think there’s any chance that this story from the other flat about the damaged wire could have caused everyone else’s issues? For me, the fact that smart meters from two different companies haven’t fixed the problem really does suggest that the problem must lie in the building

​@ConfusedJim good morning, I hope you’re well. It’s hard to know whether that damaged wire could be causing this issue for everybody. Is it today that you have a smart meter appointment? Really hoping it’s successful.